I’m at the end of day 3 in China and have just a moment to upload a photo.

As you can see above, Peking duck in Beijing is delicious.

So far we’ve visited four companies, some more impressive than others. As soon as I get a chance to upload more photos I will, but quite honestly, I’d rather be out and about taking in some sights than waiting for the pictures to upload :)

Last night I was lucky enough to catch up with fellow Alaskan’s Ryan and Gabe while they were in town playing a show at the Rock’n’Roll hotel up on H street. I’d never listened to Ryan’s band The Builders and the Butchers before but I really liked their style. From Ryan’s ever expanding vocals to dual drummers to an electric banjo and dueling mandolins, the show was fun, raw, passionate, and full of emotion in a way that I hadn’t experienced since I was back in High School getting my first taste of live shows.

I recommend checking them out if you’re up for a different sound that’s also great music.

Thanks for the tickets guys, hope to see you next time you’re in town!

I received a phone call yesterday from my mom telling me that a cousin had died this weekend. She was understandably pretty upset, and our family is reeling from the loss. He was only a few years older than I am, and got ran over where he was living in Arizona. Although we didn’t grow up together, and we were not first cousins, I’m finding it tough to imagine that he’s gone.

I’m really glad that I got to see him this past winter while we were both traveling through Anchorage. He was on his way home to see the family in Barrow and I was there for Work. We ate lunch at Applebee’s of all places, but had a great time seeing one another and catching up on life – he even let me borrow his Parka for a bit.

Even though we hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years before that, it’s still tough knowing he’s gone.

I just watched an old episode of “Secret City” – a show I used to LOVE and get really excited for as a kid. I remember how awesome the host’s space-like suit was, and how cool everything seemed. Anyone else remember this great show?

This past weekend I had front row seats to some police brutality on South Street in Philadelphia. After having a pint at Dark Horse on 2nd Street, my friends and I (A group of 30-ish white and Asian males, well dressed and relatively sober) were walking up South Street in Philadelphia with the masses. We had noticed a large police presence early on in the night, but did not think much of it.

On our way to the next pub, we were met by a wall of walking police officers who were telling everyone to turn around and go the other way – the street was closed. Confused, mostly everyone turned around. One man, a young well dressed African-American was on his cell phone and at the front of the line walking towards the police. Confused, he turned around and stepped in to an alcove to avoid the police and the masses who were being turned away.

Suddenly, and without provocation, the man on the phone was shoved into a window of a shop by police officers and manhandled. An African-American officer who did the shoving said “That’s it!”, and the next thing I heard was the young man yelling in a confused way ‘what’s going on!’ as they roughly twisted his arms around, forcing him in to hand cuffs.

The next thing I saw blew my mind.

Four police officers moved in to restrain the man, and the first officer who shoved the man into the shop window pulled out his Billy club and began beating the young man while he lay on the ground.

I immediately pulled out my cell phone to begin video-recording the beating, but no sooner did I pull out my phone and aim it at the tangle of police officers, than another officer pulled out his club and began walking at me with a purpose telling me to move along. Not wanting to be the victim of unnecessary force myself, I turned around and walked away to catch up with my friends who were now moving back up the street. Or so I thought.

It turns out that in the confusion, one of us was shoved to the ground by police, and another was the victim of pepper spray. Fortunately both were swift to move and got out of the situation relatively unscathed. We’re all lucky that tempers weren’t high and that the entire group of 8 did not see our friends being manhandled.

It’s a shame that things like this can happen and still go unnoticed. A quick search online for any news on the situation brought up only a small article about injured police officers. If anyone out there is reading this and knows the young man who I saw beaten, I’d be happy to testify on his behalf. He did nothing wrong and was severely punished for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

******UPDATE******

It was not this incident, but may explain why the officers were all keyed up. It does not justify the outcome though.

I read a stat the other day that something like 97% of blogs have been abandoned – meaning that they have not been updated in the last 120 days and I realized that I was one of those truant from my post(ing). I’ve come to realize that I started this blog to share my adventures with friends across the nation, and in doing so, was able to capture a heck of a lot over the past few years. There’s a big gap there, but I’m hoping to recapture the magic. We’ll see what happens.

At any rate, more posts to come as I continue the adventuring.

I caught a NIN show last night that was pretty awesome down at Merriweather Post Pavilion – alas, no pictures because I was afraid of being caught in an epic thunder storm for the second time in one day, but the show rocked and the over priced food was actually quite tasty.

I’m off to Las Vegas on Thursday so I’ll be sure to post more upon my return. Until then… here’s to any of you that still follow me here.